WINSTON-SALEM – The University of North
Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) will
lay off employees, eliminate vacant
positions, reduce operating costs, and
cut unallocated reserves in an effort to
manage permanent reductions in state
funding. The moves are part of a plan
that will take $2.97 million, or 10.8
percent, from the school’s $27.8 million
state appropriation for 2011-12.

Seven filled staff positions,
six-and-a-half vacant staff positions,
and six vacant faculty positions will be
eliminated. An additional two faculty
positions will be eliminated through
retirement. Another staff position has
been moved to receipt-supported, and
another to a non-operating budget
funding source.

As part of the school’s preliminary
cost-reduction efforts, on July 1 UNCSA
contracted with Winston-Salem State
University to perform UNCSA’s internal
audit function, thereby losing the first
of the seven filled staff positions.

“I am extremely saddened that it has
come to this,” said UNCSA Chancellor
John Mauceri. “Losing people who are
valuable to this organization is the
most painful part of this process. But
because salaries make up 75 percent of
our total budget, it was inevitable that
some cuts would have to be made in
personnel.”

Mauceri involved his senior leadership
team and deans in deciding how to manage
UNCSA’s budget reduction. They also had
discussions with the chairs of the
faculty and staff councils and the
student body president.

“Throughout this process, our priorities
have been to keep people in their jobs
and to minimize the impact on the
training of our student artists,”
Chancellor Mauceri continued. “It is our
legal and moral obligation to protect
the educational core of the school to
the fullest extent possible, in order to
preserve the mission of UNCSA.”

In June, North Carolina’s adopted budget
included some $414 million in cuts to
the University of North Carolina system,
or 15.6 percent. UNC General
Administration warned that UNCSA’s part
of a system-wide budget reduction could
be as high as $3.2 million, or 11.6
percent. On July 7, the Committee on
Budget and Finance of the UNC Board of
Governors approved budget cut
allocations for the campuses ranging
from 8.4 to 17.9 percent – with one
amendment. The amendment decreased the
UNCSA reduction by $226,948 to account
for the fact that UNCSA does not receive
tuition from its in-state high school
students. With this amendment, UNCSA’s
cut for 2011-12 is $2.97 million, or
10.8 percent.

“That number is significantly less than
what the school would have received in
an across-the-board cut,” Mauceri said.
“Other UNC schools are grappling with
cuts over 15 percent – which would be
devastating for us. We would, literally,
be closing our doors.”

Fortunately, UNCSA will not have to
close its School of Filmmaking – as was
projected in some early budget-reduction
scenarios. Still, the film school has
borne significant cuts.

Beyond the loss of two faculty positions
to retirement, UNCSA faculty were not
directly affected, because they have a
multi-year contract system. However,
cutting the vacant faculty positions
will undoubtedly create problems for
students, because those salary lines are
used by the arts schools to hire adjunct
and guest faculty to teach required
courses. UNCSA officials are confident
that these changes will not
impact a student’s ability to graduate
on time.

All of the staff members whose jobs are
being eliminated
will receive severance pay, pay for
unused vacation and other accrued leave,
and 12 months of health insurance
coverage. Those subject to the State
Personnel Act will also receive priority
re-employment rights at any state agency
for two years. UNCSA officials
say the loss of the filled and vacant
staff positions will put even greater
strain on already over-taxed support
staff.

UNCSA is struggling to do more with
less, as are all UNC institutions. In
the case of the School of the Arts, not
including this reduction, the cumulative
effect of 10 years of multiple budget
cuts has resulted in a loss of more than
$6.9 million in recurring base budget
funding, approximately 25 percent of the
school’s current appropriation, and
approximately $7.1 million in one-time
non-recurring budget reductions to the
institution.

In 2009, in addition
to cutting departmental operating
budgets, UNCSA eliminated five filled
staff positions and 13 vacant faculty
and staff positions to meet the
reductions in state funding.

In an email to campus earlier today,
Chancellor Mauceri noted: “If there ever
was a time for us to pull together, this
is it. Every artist experiences times
like these. If we look at the entity
known as UNCSA as an artist, then the
artist worthy of that name prevails
through creativity, passion, hard work
and collaboration in the face of
adversity. That means, we shall
prevail.”

The University of North Carolina School
of the Arts is the first
state-supported, residential school of
its kind in the nation. Established as
the North Carolina School of the Arts by
the N.C. General Assembly in 1963, UNCSA
opened in Winston-Salem (“The City of
Arts and Innovation”) in 1965 and became
part of the University of North Carolina
system in 1972. More than 1,100 students
from high school through graduate school
train for careers in the arts in five
professional schools: Dance, Design and
Production (including a Visual Arts
Program), Drama, Filmmaking, and Music.
UNCSA is the state’s only public arts
conservatory, dedicated entirely to the
professional training of talented
students in the performing, visual and
moving image arts. For more information,
visit
www.uncsa.edu.